


wish i were the moon

by starlineshine



Series: Naruto Femslash Week 2018 [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Implied abuse, Kusa Ninja, Naruto Femslash Week 2018, Pre-Relationship, Trauma, female main character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 17:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlineshine/pseuds/starlineshine
Summary: “We’re so far into Taki territory,” Ryo murmurs. “Shouldn’t we have at least seen the tailed beast by now?”Karin tries not to itch at her arm or adjust her glasses. She tries not to wiggle or twitch. She tries to be still and cold and numb and strong and nothing. “Maybe it’s hiding,” she suggests.Daigo gives her an unimpressed look. “Why would a tailed beast hide?” he asks. And that’s a good point. If Karin were a tailed beast she wouldn’t be hiding. If Karin were a tailed beast she would never hide. She would be free if she were a tailed beast. She wouldn’t win the war. She would run away and be free. But Karin isn’t a tailed beast. She’s a girl. “The tailed beast isn’t hiding. We are.”





	wish i were the moon

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Naruto Femslash Week 2018! Day 6 (September 1): **Rarepair**

By the time she’s a genin she’s twelve and she’s been bitten more times than she can count.

After months of working hard on the war effort at home and months of biting-biting-biting and she doesn’t want to talk about the biting, something happens. Working on the war in Kusa basically means speeding up the production of weapons, healing the shinobi and Karin doesn’t want to think about healing the shinobi, fixing the village after attacks destroy it, and attempting sabotage missions against Taki. It's generally useless work. Shinobi of all kinds raid Kusa, not just from Taki. All of the genin do it.

But not Karin anymore.

She’s standing next to two other genin in the grand village hall, her hands trembling just slightly. She isn’t bowing before them but she feels like she should be. “You’ve been called here for something special,” one of the village officials says. “You’re going to win us the war.”

Karin chokes. The other two genin—Ryo is one of them and she looks delighted and the other is named Daigo, or something, and he looks like nothing—only stand up a bit straighter.

“We’re assigning you to the front lines,” the Kusakage says. He speaks grandly and largely, as though the weight of his words are so heavy it might make them fall down to the floor as soon as the syllables leave his mouth. Kusa is poor and ugly and hungry and desperate and in the middle of several proxy wars between Konoha and Iwa, but he still speaks proudly. Karin would admire him for that but she hates Kusa and everyone in it and she has no feelings left for pride. “There’s a reason we haven’t won this war yet.”

“They have a tailed beast,” another one of the village officials says. There are at least a dozen of them, all making a circle around the room at their desks, with the two other genin and Karin in the middle and the Kusakage at their head. “That's why you two have been receiving specialized training.” He nods in the direction of her two new teammates. “You three are going to kill it, and make its power that of Grass.”

The two other genin glance at each other. Karin knows why she’s on this mission and it isn’t to kill a tailed beast. That might not even be possible. The council is telling her one thing: Kusa is going to lose. They can’t defeat a tailed beast.

It doesn't matter.

They're moving her to the frontlines. Her skin and the blood flowing inside it is valuable to them, and they're at war, now. Of course she’s going to the front.

“What does that mean?” the one who she thinks is called Daigo asks.

“You're going to the front lines,” a different village official informs us. Swirling her head around to look at each new speaker is making Karin dizzy. “You're going to kill a tailed beast and win us the war.”

Karin already knows that’s a lie. They’re genin. They won't be winning the war for anyone. It doesn't matter either way, because this isn't a question, it's an order, and they're going to go to the frontline.

“Alright, okay,” Karin says quietly, because she’s an outsider and she should go to the frontlines, to the dirt where she belongs. “Let's go.”

.

War doesn’t stop like the human heart. War will continue as its limbs are lost because those parts are human lives and there are always more human lives to replace those lost, _always_ more life to throw into the void. War is a machine of death. It licks up ideals and livelihoods and that pitifully beautiful need to _fight_ for their _nation_ and it chews them up and then after it spits them back out, what is left? Nothing but hunger and anger and need because war can’t stop until everyone is dead.

Everyone everyone everyone. And with each death there comes a need to take in more; more more more and if this war does not _stop_ then Karin will keep being involved in it and then she’ll die. She’ll die for a cause she didn’t support, comrades she never liked and a village she despised.

A mouth closes on her forearm, breaking the skin with blunt, flat teeth. Those teeth are meant for significantly more pedestrian activity. Ryo’s eyes flash from side to side, her jaw slowly clenching harder around Karin’s skin, dragging out the process. She looks up, meeting Karin’s eyes, and Karin watches her pupils as she grinds her teeth further, harder.

Karin used to flinch. She doesn’t anymore.

This is just another person going out of their way to try and get to her. Her name's Ryo. She's bitten Karin every day since Ryo and Daigo and her got to the war and she makes sure to create a new mark every time. Usually, they only bite in the already created indented scars across her skin; very rarely does anyone go outside of the pattern, and when they do, the most they get out of her is a sharp blink. No flinching. Karin can't. Mother's dead and she’s on the frontline. No flinching for Karin.

Her nerves weren’t numb and her mind hadn’t stopped feeling it. It hurt. It always hurts. Her skin breaks open and she still feels that and her chakra bleeds out and she feels that and the scars ache and she feels that too. But Karin will not flinch.

They’ve been trailing the Jinchuriki for a few weeks. Ryo and Daigo bite her once a day, at least, even if they haven’t been injured. “It’s for stamina,” Daigo had said. Ryo nodded along and Karin wasn’t gonna fight. Ryo pulls back, wipes her mouth. Karin lets her sleeve drop back down over her arm. Blood makes the cloth stick to her.

“We’re so far into Taki territory,” Ryo murmurs. “Shouldn’t we have at least seen the tailed beast by now?”

Karin tries not to itch at her arm or adjust her glasses. She tries not to wiggle or twitch. She tries to be still and cold and numb and strong and nothing. “Maybe it’s hiding,” she suggests.

Daigo gives her an unimpressed look. “Why would a tailed beast hide?” he asks. And that’s a good point. If Karin were a tailed beast she wouldn’t be hiding. If Karin were a tailed beast she would never hide. She would be free if she were a tailed beast. She wouldn’t win the war. She would run away and be free. But Karin isn’t a tailed beast. She’s a girl. “The tailed beast isn’t hiding. We are.”

Ryo gapes. “You mean you want to provoke it?”

Karin agrees with this reaction. At the thought of engaging in battle on _purpose_ with a tailed beast, some forever human flame inside her starts burning cold. She’s twelve years old and she’s been hurt too much to ever go face first into danger. Karin’s survived by being silent, by not drawing unnecessary attention to herself. Mama died but Karin’s still alive and she’s silent.

“It’s what we were sent here to do,” Daigo says. Karin wants to scream. “Karin, can you sense any chakra signatures nearby big enough to be the tailed beast?” Karin does not want to.

She can.

The three of them start a walk out to it, deeper and deeper into Takigakure, the trees getting thicker and the ground getting even more solidly packed under her feet. Karin can feel the humidity on her skin like someone’s sweat gathering over her, like a veil is being held over her face and wrapped around her body. The tailed beast’s chakra feels more oppressive with each step and when kunai explode through the foliage she’s too sluggish to even dodge. One knicks her shoulder and another rips up her shirt sleeve and a bit of her arm and she stumbles down a little bit, falling on her butt on the dirt.

The chakra signature—the tailed beast—it comes out from the trees. There is no tailed beast. The tailed beast is a girl.

The world explodes around her. The girl who is not a tailed beast flicks chakra from her hands like she’s splashing water and wings free themselves from her back and she flutters above them, staring down at Karin and Daigo and Ryo as though she is a god. The world explodes around her and Karin scatters, running deeper into the forest and ignoring Daigo screaming for her.

.

She’s cold and tired and dirty when the trees start to unnerve her. She reaches for chakra signatures, hoping to find none, or maybe some small enough that she doesn’t have to be afraid of them. Daigo and Ryo’s are somewhere far, far away, but they’re blowing away in the wind, flicking from side to side and fading with each move. Maybe this means they’re dying. Maybe this means Karin should go to them, should offer them her body and her blood and her bones and her soul and have them each take a piece for themselves. Maybe this means she should go save her teammates. Maybe this means she should save their lives.

She doesn’t. She starts walking in the opposite direction.

Karin’s feet ache and she left her bite wound untreated for too long and now her shirtsleeve is stuck to it. Pulling her sleeve off the nearly closed wound will be hell, but Karin doesn’t flinch when she does it. Her skin makes a ripping noise. The cloth stays intact. She releases the tiniest breath, something likely not even noticed by the wildlife. The noise isn’t enough of a cover to hide the sound of someone taking a step but Karin knows by now—just because you see something coming doesn’t mean you can stop it.

The tailed beast girl rips out of the trees just as Karin spins around and Karin barely manages to avoid the swiping hand aiming for her head. Karin falls on the ground, the back of her head banging painfully and she whispers, without intention, “The tailed beast.”

The tailed beast girl’s face goes darkened. “My name,” she growls, leaning down closer, pulling out a kunai and crouching over Karin, “is Fuu.”

Fuu has a few cuts down her shirt and in her stomach. Karin can see her ribs. Fuu has eyes like she’s seen herself in the mirror after horrible horrible things. Karin remembers the way she’d looked in battle, her comrades pushing her out like a shield and staring at her as though she were a rabid animal. The other girl pushes up over her, pinning Karin down like she’s going to rip her throat out with bare teeth.

“Fuu,” Karin whispers. She’s probably about to die. “Fuu, are you happy in Taki?”

Fuu freezes. She’s too surprised to move. Karin can feel her stomach rising and falling against Karin’s hips. “What?” the tailed beast girl asks.

“Your clothes,” Karin manages to say. “Your ribs. Your scars.”

Fuu blinks like an owl.

Karin’s never been brave but it feels different, this girl pressed so close Karin can feel her body shift with each breath and knife poised at Karin’s throat. “You don’t have to get treated like that,” Karin says. She’s never been brave before, but it’s different being brave for another person. She could never be brave for herself. Karin’s branded by bite scars and by the Kusagakure symbol on her metal hitae-ate and that feels like something she can’t escape, but Fuu isn’t just a girl. Fuu is a girl but a tailed beast, too. If Karin were a tailed beast she would run far, far away. Fuu can do that. Fuu can run far, far away. “You’re strong. You could leave.”

Fuu looks down at her and pull her kunai away. Karin’s bloody and stranded and her teammates are dead. Fuu could kill her. She should kill her. Kusa and Taki are at war. Kusa and Taki are at war. But Karin is just a tool and Fuu is just a tailed beast. “You’re strong,” Karin says again. Her hands are shaking. She prays her voice stays stronger than them. “You could leave.”

“Where would I go?” Fuu says. “There isn’t anything for me out there. I would be alone.”

“I would go with you,” Karin says immediately and she would. She would—she would. She wants to. She would. Fuu is strong and amazing and beautiful. If Karin were her she would leave. Fuu should leave. But—if Karin could go with her—that would be—

“Wha—really?” Fuu’s still staring at her, all wide eyes. “You don’t even know me. I’m gonna kill you, probably.”

“I would go with,” Karin says again and running away with a wide eyed beast girl would be so much better than going home. Then, when Fuu’s orange eyes only stay all full and vast, fires burning in them Karin’s only ever wished for, Karin adds, “You can fly. That’s pretty cool.”

Fuu pulls back, seats herself on Karin’s thighs. Karin isn’t sure if it’s safe to get up so she doesn’t move. Karin’s shirt is still ripped and bleeding a little from when a kunai managed to get her earlier. Fuu glances down at it and her breath goes sharp and she leans down—it isn’t safe to move so Karin doesn’t, but when Fuu tugs her sleeve out of the way and see all the ridges and mountains of scars, Karin almost flinches. She expects Fuu to mock her. Karin’s stupid to see this girl and think maybe they’re the same, that they’re both being used somehow and they’re both unhappy and Fuu’s gonna kill her—

“Okay,” Fuu says. She stands and then offers Karin a hand to help her up. “Let’s go.” Karin stares at her, at the outstretched hand, at Fuu’s shiny hair and at the fires in her eyes. She waves her hand expectantly.

Karin takes it. They go.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! we're living it up in [gama-chan party](https://discord.gg/g25p3S3), on discord! join n have fun
> 
> also feel free to chat w me on [tumblr](https://starlineshine.tumblr.com/)!


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